A disturbing poll by the respected Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life reveals that U.S. atheists and agnostics, as well as Jews and Mormons, know more about religion than do most of the strong majority of Americans who are Protestants and Catholics.

Fewer than half of Americans can name the four Christian gospels, according to the Pew survey of 3,400 adult Americans. That's the same grim statistic that describes how many know the Dalai Lama is Buddhist, the Koran is Muslims' holy book and that Martin Luther inspired the Protestant Reformation.

One-third of Americans falsely believe, according to other polls, that evangelist Billy Graham delivered the Sermon on the Mount. (It was Jesus.) And more than half of Americans do not recognize that Judaism is a religion....

D Mike Canard wrote:You got that right! Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Whereas the Roman Catholic "church(?)" has been heretically wrong and satanically blind for centuries.

The papists worship old long dead bones; - whereas the REAL Church - The Protestant Church - Worships the living God and His Son Jesus.

The popery of Rome worships cold hard alabaster statuettes; - Whereas the REAL Church - the Protestant Church - worships the living God and His Son the Christ.

The satanic Vatican and their Bible ignorant followers worship and pray to dead sinners and relics; - Whereas the TRUE Protestant Church which emerged from God's ordained Reformation, has the common sense NOT to be that blind.

The "GOD hating" Roman Catholics blatantly sin and break the following commandment...

Ex 20:3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: 5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;"

I know how bad it is in churches working in a Christian bookshop,when I studied in canterbury some atheists had read the bible in greek and I knew one homosexual man that had studied theology and the department was led by a non Christian as Christianity can be studied like evolution or some other subject With modern technology Christians should know there bible well as Tyneside time there was only a few English bibles in the country but we can have bible on our phones to computers and every electronic device but yet we do not use it Entertainment has so dumbed down the society and Christians that thinking has become a lost art and because there is a direct link between how much we watch and read.We would rather watch rather than read gods word.It is embaressing if you are witnessing and the atheist knows more of the bible than you

I think there are quice a few atheists that came from a Catholic background, and it doesn't surprise me that much. I think some others no matter what their background were jilted by Christian (ex-) girlfriends at least that seems like an explanation for some of them.

Mockers have been around ever since Satan, and his followers are keeping up his tranditions.

Those who hate Christianity are likely going to be highly motivated to "know their enemy" so as to be better able to defeat them, whereas those who merely identify with "Christianity" on a cultural, family-history level--having seldom darkened the door of any church themselves--are likely to know very little about the faith they profess.

In a college-level writing class in 1981, my Atheist-professor referenced Christ's actions prior to His crucifixion by asking our class of some 30+ students the name of the garden in which Christ prayed.

I marveled at the silence, thinking the question to be rather easy for anyone with any kind of Christian background.

I finally raised my hand and said "Gesthemene", to the smile of my professor, which made me wonder: Is he happy that I knew the answer or is he happy that I was the ONLY one who knew the answer. Probably both.

Having read some atheists like Walter Kaufmann, they may know more about Christianity from a factual or technical perspective, but they are usually remarkably ignorant of theology and the deeper meaning. (Either that, or they just ignore it in favor of their straw-man arguments.) Kaufmann, I would say, is several notches above pop-atheism like Hitchens, Dawkins, and Dennett, and has a more sophisticated critique of Christianity than the pop-atheists, but even Kaufmann doesn't seem to understand Christianity on a meaningful level.

I find it very difficult to believe fewer than half of Americans can name the four gospels. I wonder about this study.